1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a field of bit-mapped image character recognition systems and, more particularly, to a method of parsing and analysis pre-process assisting character and text recognition of printed text from a bit-mapped binary image or other binary or raster images inputted from a scanning device or the like or obtained by other means.
2. Prior Art
Segmentation and parsing methods are known in the art. Typically, such methods divide an image into parcels containing homogeneous objects and use a plurality of special computing procedures, each depending on a plurality of parameters, to analyze an object.
Known segmentation and parsing methods give little ability to perform a fully complete and overall analysis of objects since they use deficient data. Moreover, said methods require a large number of specialized computing procedures for analysis that depends on the quantity of objects multiplied by the number of parameters thereof.
An example of said type of systems is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,408,094 Jun. 18, 2002.
Another known kind of method that parses a bit-mapped image into regions with further links startup between objects within the same level and between levels of complexity is described in [1] and U.S. Pat No. 6,038,342 Mar. 14, 2000; U.S. Pat. No. 5,848,184 Dec. 8, 1998.
The main limitations of these methods are a great number of specialized computing procedures required for each of a plurality of object types and a scantiness of obtained subsidiary data that is insufficient and cannot be used to analyze other objects.
Another method of pre-processing before character and text recognition of a printed text obtained from a bit mapped image requires inputting scanned data into a bit-mapped file, parsing it into objects and a further analysis of each type of object by a specific computing means. The essential feature of the method lies in its ability to operate only with shape parameters thereof. The method cannot perform a fully complete and cannot perform overall analysis as it uses no spatial parameters data (U.S. Pat. No. 5,594,815 Jan. 14).
Therefore, the target of the present invention is to develop a bit-mapped image analysis method, not requiring considerable analysis means, obtaining more informative analysis results and higher accuracy than the prior art.